1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to wireless communication systems, methods, and devices. More particularly, the invention relates to wireless communication system, methods and devices restricting and preventing pairing attempts from virus attack and malicious software.
2. Description of Related Art
Mobile wireless communication including cellular, short range, local area networks and the like, especially Bluetooth connection setup are subject to virus attacks and malicious software during file transfer while in a paired state. The Bluetooth connection setup (as described in the Bluetooth Specification, Version 2, Vols. 1-4, dated Nov. 4, 2004, fully incorporated herein by reference) is frequently implemented in such a way that the user is asked whether to accept a connection or reject it. While this functionality is intended to prevent unknown and unauthorised devices from establishing a connection to the user's device, virulent software on an unknown device may continuously bombard the user device with connection attempts on the wireless air interface in order to spread out on as many devices as possible. The user, tired of rejecting the repeated connection attempts, might finally be tempted to accept it once in order to stop the repeated user queries on his own device. Thus, the virulent software might be “successfully” installed on the own device.
One problem with the current implementations seen on many wireless Bluetooth devices is that the user interface may be blocked by the connection attempts, leaving the user only the option to accept or reject the connection attempt, but preventing him from using any other function of the device. Especially, the user may not be able to enter the menu in order to switch Bluetooth off in order to stop the connection attempts. The only option left would be to leave the reception area of the device which initiated the connection attempts. However, this option may not always be possible, and the user would typically not know in which direction to go in order to avoid the unknown connection attempts.
Also, there is no way to perform anything with the mobile terminal before the file transfer is accepted. The user may not be able to get into menu before the file transfer and installation has been done or the attack has ended. The notification pop-up takes over the user interface (UI) and other functions that accept or reject can not be done. If Accept (Yes) is selected, the malicious virus software (SW) gets in, and if Reject (No) is selected, the same pop-up appears repetitively.
What is needed in the art is a modification of the connection set up process in wireless communications wherein a terminal has a mechanism to detect and reject a virus attack; identify the attacker and the address, create and store a rejected list of attackers denied entry, and establish a time period for denying connection attempts whereby a user does not need to turn off the system to avoid an attack, as is the case in the current state of the art.
Prior art related to mobile devices and virus attacks includes:
A. USPA 20050081051 discloses a method, system, and program for mitigating self-propagating e-mail viruses. A request to send an electronic mail message with a file attachment to intended recipients is received. A characteristic of the intended recipients is compared with a maximum recipient limit for the file attachment. If the characteristic of the intended recipients exceeds the maximum recipient limit for the file attachment, then a sender authorization is requested prior to sending the electronic mail message. The sender authorization is required such that if a virus is attempting to self-propagate by sending the electronic mail message, the attempt is mitigated.
The prior art fails to address the problem or provide a solution for preventing virus attack in file transfer between paired mobile devices without shutting down the devices, as is presently the state of the art.